Judaism was made illegal in Portugal and Spain at the start of the Inquisition in the 15th century. Thousands of Jews were forcibly converted to Catholicism. Many fled to France, Italy, Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa. There they became the Sephardic community we know today. New Spain - now Mexico - was the destination for some of these conversos or New Christians. A century after their expulsion from Iberia, a group of Jewish descendants maintained their religion in hiding - the crypto-Jews. Today thousands are discovering their authentic selves by realizing their Jewish heritage - a crypto-Jewish awakening.
